The Red rose is the favorite option for Sant Jordia holiday that falls on working day for the first time since the pandemic and hopes to have a great reception. This means that the floritas hope to sell more bouquets than last year in order to fulfill the flower and book tradition. The first part of a legend and the second of a Valencian writer, promoter of the Day of the book.

In any case, the tradition has been evolving and more and more people are betting on other colors and types of flowers. The experts, for their part, They recommend opting for more sustainable flowers than a rose, a type of flower that is ceasing to be produced in Spain. The director of the Mercabarna-flor floral art school is committed to the trend of Kokedama in rose bushes. What’s more, she is sure that it will be one of the strong bets in Sant Jordi 2024.

What does Kokedama mean?

The word kokedama means ‘moss ball’ and it is an ancient Japanese technique that consists of planting a plant, in this case, a red rose bush. This plant mole needs abundant watering during the hot months and only once a week in winter.

Kokedama copy.

Kokedama copy. | UnSplash

Kokedamas are made through a Japanese technique that literally means ‘moss ball’. The story goes that a Japanese man dedicated to bonshai discarded one of them and put it in a bag, and since it had the same ingredients, over time, the moss together with the earth formed a ball inside the bag, from which months, he was surprised to discover that a plant had grown, a gardener named José Ruiz Hernández told Efe.

“The big difference that kokedamas present is the way they are watered, which is done by immersion,” said the aforementioned source. When watering them, the ball submerges, expels bubbles and when it stops releasing them it means that it is already watered. “You drain it for a minute and you can put it on a base of stone, wood, in a glass, a table… It needs a base because the moss is wet, but it doesn’t shed water like a plant can do in a pot,” he explains.